We propose to establish a comprehensive Oral Health Research Center of Discovery that has its central theme "The basis of oral and craniofacial health and susceptibility to disease: a focus on the child as a key to lifelong oral health." Thus, this Center is designed to address the oral/craniofacial health of children, an approach that has great potential to produce life-long oral health, in a population recently cited by Congress as a priority for NIH. Seven specific aims are delineated which progress from basic research to provide new insight into origins of disease susceptibility in children; to translation of basic knowledge into new diagnostics, tretments, and preventive interventions; to evaluation of the efficacy and effectiveness of the new interventions when applied to populations; to outreach designed to communicate the findings and educate professionals to conduct more research. The Center proposal consists of five cores (administrative, outreach, biometry, basic science, and clinical) and fourteen ongoing funded projects. are affiliated with the Center, which leverages the NIDR investment of $7.96 million direct costs into a Center with budgets exceeding $30.9 million. The projects are organized into four clusters around the topics of innate host defense and mucosal health, periodontal disease, craniofacial disorders, and cries, with cluster coordinators who will organize meetings and ensure communication and collaboration. Quarterly Center-wide meetings with scientific presentations by investigators will encourage inter-cluster collaboration. The Center involves three health science schools (Medicine, Dentistry, and Public Health); Children's hospital and Regional Medical Center, insurance carrier Washington Dental Services; Departments of Health of Washington and Micronesia; and collaboration with four foreign universities. The Center capitalizes on established strengths and activities in basic biological, clinical, behavioral and health services research and brings them to bear on understanding and addressing susceptibility to oral and craniofacial diseases and disorders in children. Highlights include new investigations into basic cellular responses to oral bacterial biofilms, expanding community demonstration research to increase access to preventive dental care for children, enhancing an established unique short-term research training institute for faculty, and follow-up on a Center-sponsored outreach symposium "Children Our Future: Ethics, Health Policy, Medical/DENTAL Care for Children" which has garnered national attention.